JG Cully's writing blog about the Haldred Chronicles series of fantasy detective novels.

Monday, 14 December 2015

What should I write next?

Keeping to a trend, at last, a blog update! Sorry for taking so long.To update you all on my writing, I attempted Nanowrimo 2015 in November, but sadly I only managed 7,000 words on my concept novel ‘Haldred Chronicles: Titan’. I got the characters and a lot of scenes fleshed out but I just didn’t make the time to finish it off.However, I still started the novel well, and it now joins several other ideas that are more than just a few lines on a page. Hence the title of this blog post.2015 has been a great year. Haldred Chronicles: Shade was released in August, and recently all 3 of my novels are now available on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback format (check them out HERE for the UK and HERE for the US!). I’m very glad I now have a proper starter ‘trilogy’ of novels and judging by reviews, people are liking my writing.2016 is going to be a busy and exciting year for me outside of writing, but I still want to keep writing even a little bit.To do this, I want to start 2016 by properly kicking off another project.That’s where you, the person reading this blog post, come in. Help me choose which idea to pursue. Here are the options:•Haldred Chronicles: Titan = "Victoria and Co find themselves on the world's first ‘tourism’ ship, but someone plans on spoiling the party..." = This was my Nanowrimo 2015 novel and I got to 7,000 words with it. Should I finish it in 2016?•Haldred Chronicles: Anna = “Victoria and her team travel to the mighty Magra empire to investigate a series of deadly seaborne raids from mysterious attackers.” = this novel was originally to be my 3rd book but ‘Shade’ took over. It’s set in the Magra empire, a Chinese/Japanese themed land were villages along the sea have experienced deadly raids by unknown enemies. I’ve already written 19,000 words on this and developed some interesting characters. Should I continue?•Haldred Chronicles: Fey-hacking = “Courier-fey provide secure, reliable, almost instant communications across Larrick City…or do they?” = Courier-fey are like text messaging in the world of Haldred Chronicles. After reading a brilliant book about the News of the World hacking scandal I thought to myself, what if something like that happened with the Courier-fey in my world? This story at the moment has only a couple of introduction scenes, but I like them; one involves a talking cat. Maybe this is the novel I should write in 2016?•Adventure and other bad ideas: Sophie’s story = “Sophie Dalvich, a barmaid at the Broken Dreams tavern, finds her cartography and map making skill’s requested by a group of mercenaries.” = This was to be the BIG novel, way before Haldred Chronicles: Alyssa was written. It was what established the Haldred Chronicles world but the story itself was never finished. Despite this, even in it’s draft form it is over 75,000 words long and has an entire cast already created for it. It concentrates on a group of adventures operating in Larrick City, from many different cultures and races, banded together on various mercenary missions. I could go back to it, refine it, and produce it as a huge spin-off novel. Should I?So those are the options. Titan, Anna, Fey-Hacking or Sophie’s story. The titles will probably change but the concepts are there.Vote by replying to this post with the name of the story you like. Likewise, PM me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Tumblr (now that Tumblr has instant messaging!) and let me know which one you like the look of. See links to the right of this post.Then I’ll make 2016 the year of that novel.Thanks everyone. Till next time!